Dimity seated herself in a patch of clover flowers near the cliff path, with a basket of beans to shell, and set to work. It was a guess, but she had often seen Charles walk that way, and soon she saw his long-striding figure approaching. Her heart careened wildly behind her ribs, and she sat up straight, pushing her shoulders back and tweaking the blouse so that it sat wide across them, exposing the straight line of her collarbones, the soft curve downwards where her arms began. The sun was warm on her skin. She tried to keep her expression relaxed, but it was hard not to narrow her eyes in the bright sunshine. In the end she had to blink, and lower her brows; squint a little. She pursed her lips at the onslaught, fretting because she couldn’t look up again without giving away her plan to be found, caught unawares. The breeze stirred the wisps of hair against her neck and made her shudder. And then she heard the words she had longed to hear for almost a year, and she shut her eyes in bliss.
“Mitzy, don’t move. Stay exactly as you are,” said Charles. So she didn’t move, even though inside she was smiling and had a tremulous feeling, like she might laugh. Mitzy, don’t move.
It was a rapid drawing, one of open-ended lines and suggested space; sparse, hazy. But somehow the glow of the sunlight was captured, and even in Dimity’s scowl the ghost of her delight was hiding, right there on the page. Charles finished it without a flourish, just that slow ceasing of movement through his hand, his pencil; a frown of his own and a quick, hard exhalation of air through the nose. Then he looked up and smiled, and flipped the sketchbook around to show to her. What she saw made her catch her breath, and a rosy blush spread up from her neck. As she had hoped, the drawing was indeed of a woman, not a child, but she was unprepared for how lovely that young woman would be, with her smooth, sunlit skin and her face full of her own private thoughts. Dimity looked up at Charles in amazement.
There was a mirror at The Watch, in the hallway; an ancient one with silvery glass and the mottled spots of age all over it. It was four inches across, and in it Dimity knew her own face of old. Filling the round glass, somewhat shapeless and dim. Like some slave in the belly of a ship, peering out through a porthole. She knew the whites of her own eyes well. Here in this drawing was a different creature entirely. He hadn’t drawn her with blood under her nails, hunched to avoid being noticed, a child who hid along hedgerows. He had seen past all that, and drawn what had been hiding underneath. She gaped at it, at him. As if puzzled by her reaction, Charles took the drawing back.
“You don’t approve?” he said, studying it with a frown. But then, as if he also realized what had changed, his mouth thinned into a thoughtful line and curled up at one side. “The poor ugly duckling, who was bitten and pushed and laughed at,” he said softly. He smiled. Dimity didn’t understand. She heard only the words ugly, poor; she felt crushed. “Oh, no, no! My dear Mitzy! What I meant was… the story then goes on to say: ‘It does not matter that one has been born in the hen yard as long as one has lain in a swan’s egg…’ That’s what I meant, Mitzy. That the new swan turned out to be the most beautiful of them all.”
“Will you teach me that story?” she said breathlessly.
“Oh, it’s just a silly children’s story. Élodie will read it to you-it’s one of her favorites.” Charles waved a hand dismissively. “Come on. This sketch is a good start, but only a start.”
“A start for what, Mr. Aubrey?” Dimity asked as he stood up, gathered his bag and his folding stool, and strode away towards the stream.
“My next piece, of course. I know exactly what I want to do now. You have inspired me, Mitzy!” Dimity hurried after him, tugging her blouse higher over her shoulders; bewildered, alight, joyful.
She spent the following afternoon on the beach with Élodie and Delphine, and as Élodie hopped in and out of the waves, squealing at the chilly water, she told Dimity snatches of the story of the ugly duckling, and it made Dimity smile all the way through to think that this was how Charles thought of her.
“Everybody knows that story, Mitzy,” Élodie pointed out patiently, studying the bubbling waves that foamed around her angular knees. Delphine was swimming slowly to and fro just offshore, and she laughed, and winked at Dimity, who had rolled up her trousers and was wading around the rocks in the shallows, dropping mussels and edible weed into a bucket.
“And now I know it, too, Élodie. Thanks to you,” Dimity said, happiness making her generous.
“Why do you ask about it now?” the youngest girl asked.
“Oh, no reason. I heard it mentioned, that was all,” Dimity lied easily. She was calm, and felt like she might be glowing. That is how you love a woman, Charles-you draw her face.
When they returned to Littlecombe late in the afternoon, they found the tea things only half laid out on the kitchen table, and Celeste sitting rigidly on the bench with a paper in her hand, which she was studying with a strained expression.
“What is it, Mummy? Are you all right?” said Delphine, going over to sit beside her.
Celeste swallowed, and frowned as she looked up as if she didn’t recognize them. But then she smiled a little and put the paper down on the table. It was Charles’s latest sketch of Dimity. Dimity’s heart gave one loud, exaggerated beat, like a bell sounding.
“Yes, dearest. I’m fine. I was just tidying up before tea when I found this drawing your father has done. Look at our Dimity, look how lovely she is!” Celeste exclaimed, and though the words were generous, they sounded brittle.
“Gosh-look, Mitzy! You do look very pretty,” said Delphine.
“So he is planning another piece with you in it? Did he say so?” Celeste asked.
“He said something like that, I think,” Dimity said, and though she felt bashful about saying it, a part of her wanted to shout it out-that Celeste had been wrong and Charles did still want to draw her; that he had not moved on and lost interest in her. Celeste took a deep breath and got up from the bench.
“Strange, this turnaround. I had thought it would be that tourist woman next, with her milksop English skin.”
“What tourist woman, Mummy?” said Élodie, opening a packet of biscuits and tipping them out onto a plate. Celeste put her hand to her forehead for a moment, then ran it down to cover her mouth. There were furrows in her brow. “Mummy?”
“Nothing, Élodie. It doesn’t matter.” Celeste put her hands on her hips and surveyed the three of them. “Well! What a gaggle of messy creatures! You’ve been swimming, I see, so you will be hungry. Alors-go and get changed and I will finish the tea. Allez, allez!” She herded them from the room, her cheeriness keeping those same sharp edges as before, and Dimity noticed that she kept her eyes askance, and would not look her in the face.
Dimity tried to keep the pale blue blouse, but Valentina flew into such a storm when Dimity suggested that it might have blown away that she had to pretend to find it in one of the trees behind the backyard. She got no thanks for returning it, just a scowl and an admonition to peg things more securely.
“You’ve no idea how many meals this blouse has fed you, over the years,” Valentina said. With a pang, Dimity handed it over. She had far more to thank the garment for. It had brought Charles back to her; brought her back from the cliff edge. For the next few days she ran her errands with a springing step, swinging her basket and singing to herself. In the village, one afternoon, she saw Charles sitting outside the pub with the tourist man, the one whose hair was blacker than tar. They were drinking dark ale and talking, and Dimity, giving the pub its usual wide berth, wondered what kind of things men talked about. She wondered if he would tell the man about her-about his muse, and the picture he was planning.